Open Thread - Iraq Policy Debate

by Mary

As the Bush administration tries to find a way to "succeed" in their mission in Iraq, one option discussed these days is the so-called "Salvadorian" option. This option says that US would pick one side (the Shia) and use tactics used in Reagan's dirty war in El Savador. Via Laura, we find Jason Vest wrote about the Salvadorian policy last year when it was first floated. (emphasis mine)

With nothing to lose, the Salvadoran military and its proxies pursued a campaign of "lavish brutality, fail[ing] to distinguish between dissenters and revolutionaries," killing tens of thousands of citizens (many of whom had nothing to do with the FMLN), all of which added up to a "U.S. policy built on a foundation of corpses." So concluded Benjamin Schwartz, the RAND Corporation analyst tasked with assessing El Salvador policy for the Department of Defense, in December 1998's Atlantic Monthly.